Older Adults Who Do This Have the Brain Function of People a Decade Younger

Several studies published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry found 50-plus-year-olds who regularly do word and number puzzles have better brain function that improves over time, reports MarketWatch . "We've found that the more regularly people engage with puzzles such as crosswords and Sudoku, the sharper their performance is across a range of tasks assessing memory, attention, and reasoning," said Anne Corbett at the University of Exeter Medical School. "The improvements are particularly clear in the speed and accuracy of their performance." Grammatical reasoning tests especially highlighted these findings, with subjects who do puzzles more than once a day exhibiting brain function of people about 10 years younger, and the short-term memory of people about eight years younger. "We would recommend doing puzzles daily if you can, but the message is that every little bit helps," Corbett noted. "We saw the greatest impact in people who complete puzzles more than once a day."